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How Our Ribs for Kids Charity Event Came to Be

Every year for the past 15 years, McGonigle’s Market has been holding our Ribs for Kids event to raise money for FosterAdopt Connect, a local charity that supports abused and neglected foster and adopted children and the families caring for them. It all started when Mike McGonigle’s managing partner, Randy Ross and his wife, Lori, started Midwest Foster Care and Adoption Association (now FosterAdopt Connect).

The Rosses Rock!

Theirs is an amazing story on its own. Besides raising their biological children, over the years, this amazing couple has fostered hundreds of children and adopted 21! If there were more people like Randy and Lori in the world, it would definitely be a better place. Their commitment to these kids and this cause is inspiring and it just seemed natural that we should help out by supporting their charity.

Dad Would Have Liked It…a Lot

McGonigle’s founder, Bill McGonigle, was especially committed to children and family. He had nine children and instilled in each one of them a commitment to making the world a better place by strengthening the family. He was very generous in his lifetime, helping many struggling families to provide food for themselves. Mike McGonigle, his son, who now owns and operates McGonigle’s Market, knew that supporting this organization would be the perfect way to honor his memory. So in 2004, the first Ribs for Kids event was held.

Since then, every spring, rain or shine, McGonigle’s has continued to support this cause. “We hold it every year at the end of April or beginning of May,” Mike McGonigle said, “to commemorate both the opening of the store on May 5th of 1951 and the start of the barbecue season. I know my dad would have been proud to be a part of such a good cause.

How Ribs for Kids Works

The ribs are hot and ready and if customers can’t eat them that day, but still want to donate to a good cause (and get a deal on delicious barbecued ribs), McGonigle’s also sells tokens for a slab of ribs. Tokens can be redeemed throughout the year. Each year, the event gets a little bigger (weather plays a small part) but in the last few years, we’ve sold over 3,500 slabs of ribs and raised over $30,000. That money goes to help fund food pantries, clothing closets, mentoring and advocacy programs, and more for the wonderful families who foster and adopt these hurting kids. There are over 1,900 abused and neglected children in Missouri and Kansas, and every little bit of money donated helps them have better lives.

FosterAdopt Connect

This non-profit started as a support group for foster and adoptive parents in 1998. Family participation quickly grew from 20 families to the more than 400 families it serves today. Click on this link Foster Adopt Connect to find out more about this organization which supports abused and neglected foster and adopted children and the families caring for them. If you can’t make it to the Ribs for Kids event this year, but would like to donate, you can do that as well here.